In most corporate or group computing environments, an email system such as Microsoft Outlook or Lotus Notes is used that includes calendaring functionality. The calendaring functionality allows users to schedule meetings and organize their time. Integrating email and calendaring functions can improve ease of use and allow the email system to be used to enhance the calendaring functionality. For example, meeting invitations, changes to meetings, cancelation of meetings, and reminders of upcoming meetings can be sent seamlessly to invited participants using the email system. Look and feel of the email and the calendaring functions can also be integrated to improve user experience.
The calendaring functionality provided by most email systems, however, does not include support for conferencing resources such as audio, video, and/or web resources. These meeting resources are typically provided by a separate conferencing system that is often provided by a different company. Thus, while most users prefer to use the calendaring functionality provided by the email system to schedule meetings, these meetings must also be scheduled with a separate conferencing system. Use of the meeting resources is typically scheduled so that conferencing systems can ensure quality and availability. The conferencing system provides the meeting resources as well as information, such as dial-in numbers and codes, to access the resources. This information is often sent to meeting participants by email in a message separate from a meeting invitation. Because the email system (or calendaring system) and the conferencing system are separate, multiple steps are required to schedule a meeting on the email system and to schedule meeting resources on the conferencing system. Synchronization between the systems can also be a problem if a meeting is modified or deleted on one system but not the other.
Thus, there is a general need in the art for improved methods and apparatuses for scheduling meetings when using separate email and conferencing systems.